PlaneShift
Support => Complaint Department => Topic started by: Psignosis on July 14, 2007, 05:07:06 am
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> The rest of PlaneShift development history is a winding down path of failure, filled with slow updates, numerous bugs, unprofessionally
> designed content (quests, levels etc), with quite a few developers, contributors and community figures leaving the project. The proof is
> in the game credits, forum history and the game (or shall I say "Beta") itself.
One of the most important things about having an open source project, is managing the people properly and giving everybody a fair go.
The fact that this guys post was locked down and stopped is another indication of retracting freedom of speech. Thats not very open in my view. He wasn't being offensive, he wasn't swearing or attacking anybody personally. He was shut down mostly because of political and indifference point of view. That is indication of, its open in so far as I like what you post open. It comes down to what I was saying in my previous post about the Decision making process being in the hands of a few.
I am really no longer sure why these forums have been setup. In my opinion, they where setup for constructive discussion which potentially could point to areas where Planeshift could be improved? Ideas, Suggestions etc? Weren't they not? THAT, or they're just an area to shut people up and give them something to do which gets them off everyones back. I don't really know. Though, I do question any suggestion through these forums ever getting heard.
Well, funny thing that. A discussion is being raised. If developers are leaving the project, decision makers aren't able to handle criticism without locking down posts/threads because it bruises there ego etc. In the best interests of the game and software's future, I do think this may be one of the reasons why such forums where setup in the first place? To discuss issues like this.
Why is it so or do I not have enough Freedom to be able to speak about such issues? Do I not have anybody's permission and is it easier to just lock this thread to save me from causing anymore trouble?
I've noticed that you guys have been looking for helpers for ages and not much has changed.
http://www.planeshift.it/team.html
Why haven't you guys been able to find good developers and why have developers been leaving?
Its a fair question and one which deserves a better answer than, ' its a free project and nobody has the time '.
The previous poster seemed to have a reasonable concern, quite credible I thought which was locked away and shut off. The fact that there was no response to the answer other than, ' its a free game so shut up ' indicates a greater degree of credibility to the author.
If there is a problem with management and incentives for developers getting onboard and contributing, I'd think that quite a serious issue wouldn't you say? After all, this is supposed to be ... dare I say ... Open Source, where everybody is involved and contributing. Or am I gladly mistaken? There's a double-standard somewhere here. So anyway...
Why don't they stay? Is there a management problem? You can lock peoples posts so... you can answer the question.
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I have no idea what developers have been leaving, and I've been on the team for a year and a half. We have had 0 people consciously quit the team, 1 (DaveG) mysteriously disappear, and 1 Settings member (Kerol) switch to a GM Team Leader position because he felt he was better suited for it.
There are the people we have gained since then:
Programmers:
Acissej
Bereror
deathkiller
Kayden
Artists:
Gentar
Gluonite
Helm
Writers:
Jeraphon
Xillix
I highly encourage you to rethink your position, because it makes no sense.
Also, I have no idea what previous thread you are referring to without a link. I know Neko locked a thread on a similar subject some time ago, but that was because the original poster deleted his/her account, and thus was not interested in discussing anything. We're not interested in hearing rants when you make it obvious that you don't care about our response.
A lot of prospects who sign up do not have the skill level we need for the game. Some prospects who sign up go through a few tasks then find themselves lacking time to commit to the project further. (For example Kieve, who created the new beautiful Enkidukai skins. Things have come up in his life and he needs to take care of it, so no more working on PS until then.) But I have over 20 artists assigned, at least 10 of which I feel very confident in. Things are going to pick up incredibly if they stick around. The same goes for Xillix and his herd of prospects. Together, him and I have an army of people ;) Do you still want to tell me that we're unable to recruit?
I go through the Wishlist quite often looking for possible engine tasks to hand over to Arianna, so that she could get them assigned to engine prospects. I'm not the only one, as well. I listen to people's complaints if they are raised without temper tantrums, and I forward Xillix many threads relating to quest issues that he then tries to take care of. If someone is being a two-year-old in this forum, I have no qualms about treating them in a manner that they deserve. I spend too much time here to waste it on trouble makers. But if you're being honest and genuine about something, I'll make sure that you get heard and that your problem is taken care of.
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Also, I have no idea what previous thread you are referring to without a link. I know Neko locked a thread on a similar subject some time ago, but that was because the original poster deleted his/her account, and thus was not interested in discussing anything. We're not interested in hearing rants when you make it obvious that you don't care about our response.
Quick search shows that that was indeed the one where this person got their "quote" from. As Karyuu stated, that is why the thread was locked.
Also keep in mind that was just the original posters OPINIONS. And they didn't provide any evidence to back up that claim. Since they deleted their account directly following that thread post, then they obviously didn't plan on ever backing up any of their claims, thusly making their entire reason for posting moot. We promote discussions, not "come in and say something untrue just to say and leave to try and bait people into getting worked up and starting flame wars".
The fact that this guys post was locked down and stopped is another indication of retracting freedom of speech.
If I wanted to limit freedom of speech, I would have simply deleted the thread altogether and you would have probably never even known that thread to even exist.
And now a question for you: Do you have evidence to back up any of the claims you are basing your thread upon, or are you simply believing that what you quoted to be fact without ever doing any research into the subject before hand, and thusly coming to false conclusions about the true state of the project?
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The simple fact is developers are always in short supply. With such an ambitious project as an mmorpg (undoubtly one of the hardest things to develop well) the planeshift project needs very high quality members. You're essentially asking people to do stuff which they could be (or often are as part of their day jobs) paid good money to do, in their spare time in between everything else that they have going on in their life.
In addition to this, there is already a base of very good developers at the top of the chain in Planeshift who have much of it planned out, and who make alot of desicions about it- these means new developers who come in don't really have much control of anything they're doing for quite a while (in a design sense). Thats just part and parcel of such a large and complex project, but it means developers have to have a real passion for simply coding and letting others make desicions about where things are heading. Alot of coding that developers do in their free time is stuff they do because they want to experiment and have control over the design process, but its simply not feasible to let people coming into the project have that sort of control in Planeshift. So its one thing to have a developer who likes messing about and coding stuff up in their free time, and having a developer who is willing to simply debug a complex system for hours on end and fix problems that come up.
The attitude of "We have this game, why aren't lots of people volunteering to work on" shows a lack of understanding of software development. Its such an arduous, complex, time consuming and (at times) frustrating task that I'm honestly suprised at how far it's got so far and the passion of the people who work on it.
The only thing I can think of that would encourage more developers to work on the project would simply be better documentation. To be brutally honest, the current code documentation of planeshift lies between non existant and shockingly bad. But you know, its a case of being one thing to pinpoint something lacking, another thing to fix it- every developer could stop work for a month and work on documentation in that time, but then the players don't get any new developments for an entire month.
Simply put, the inherent problems with attracting developers to work for free to a project are far bigger than any problems caused by <insert conspiracy here>. Its just a fact of life. If everyone that got annoyed by the pace of development of Planeshift went away and learnt c++, and if only one tenth of those people had the intelligence and skill to contribute in some way to the project, It would probably be finished by now. Until then, when the small group of people who are developers and spend time working on the project see posts like that, do you really think much good is going to come of it?
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One of the most important things about having an open source project, is managing the people properly and giving everybody a fair go.
Don't forget the bit about treating people with respect and dignity. I'd say more, but they'd ban me.
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Debunking reasons not to open source indie freeware games (http://freegamer.blogspot.com/2007/06/debunking-reasons-not-to-open-source.html)
The writer of that blog said everything already on the link. I think it's futile to post this here, but I sometimes cling to insignificant hopes it'll make somebody rethink about certain pre-emptive points of view.
And although the code is open-source, the way this project as a whole is managed doesn't match at all with open-source, it's more of a freeware project using an open-source engine.
P.S.: OGRE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OGRE) is an Open-source engine, Pacific Storm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_storm) is a commercial game that uses it for example. An engine is one thing, a game is another, although they are obviously interdependent and interlinked. PlaneShift engine is Open-source(Engine is the coding, etc.). Now the game(gameplay, story, graphics) isn't. So Open-source isn't a valid argument to question the development of Planeshift Game as it isn't going to be Open-Source I think. Though it is for Planeshift Engine. If you want an example of another ambitious freeware project to compare notes. Here is one: Babylon 5: I Found Her (http://ifh.firstones.com/). Though obviously they have different aims, and thus different needs.
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Somethings people should keep in mind before posting:
1) Just because somebody said something, doesn't mean it's true.
2) Keep in mind updating webpages aren't way up there on the devs to-do list.
3) Do a little bit of research.
4) I'm better than you.
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I don't get this...
If Planeshift management is so suspicious and unprofessional, why not go to another, better free 3D MMORPG?
A highly successfull MMORPG with full open source pollicy, where everyone are allowed to contribute as they please, updates are very frequent and all content is nothing short of professionalism.
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A highly successfull MMORPG with full open source pollicy, where everyone are allowed to contribute as they please, updates are very frequent and all content is nothing short of professionalism.
Anybody know any MMORPGs that fit all of the above criteria?
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A highly successfull MMORPG with full open source pollicy, where everyone are allowed to contribute as they please, updates are very frequent and all content is nothing short of professionalism.
Hmm "Contribute as they please" and "updates are very frequent"
???
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Dream a little dream for me . . .
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.... I'm working for one, though successful is a harder to define term as its subjective and we're not running a public server yet.
Sorry I don't have thumbnails for this.
http://hellemans.cyanox.nl/hell/screenshots/castle/castle9-tex.JPG
http://hellemans.cyanox.nl/hell/screenshots/castle/castle10-tex.JPG
http://hellemans.cyanox.nl/hell/screenshots/castle/castleindoor1.JPG
http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Screenshots/Four%20Leaves%20Tavern/tf1.jpg
http://hellemans.cyanox.nl/hell/screenshots/keep/nightkeep2.jpg
http://hellemans.cyanox.nl/hell/screenshots/models/skeleton/steve2.JPG
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we're not running a public server yet.
Notify me once this changes. You've got a lovely atmosphere there ;)
And that street screen reminds me of an old story I wrote :<
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You forgot the Castle Cellar and Hallway shots
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Jekkar, Induane, Impressive.
/me tries to bribe them to come back to work for planeshift and fails :)
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The Castle isn't my work, its our other 3d dev. Jekkar did several textures for the interior of the castle, but I didn't throw in those shots. I did the taven in those shots, most of the texture work in the tavern is Jeks.
And, for what its worth, I applied to join twice and was ignored. Jekkar also applied and was denied I believe.
Here are the missing shots Jekkar referenced You'll see some Jekkar texture work in there as well:
http://hellemans.cyanox.nl/hell/screenshots/castle/castleindoor3.JPG
http://hellemans.cyanox.nl/hell/screenshots/castle/castleindoor2.JPG
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I bet that was "back in the day" :) I know you guys are busy with PT now, but our application process and prospect management has changed dramatically since a few months ago. So if you would like to give this another shot, you're very much welcome to. I'm handling art prospects now instead of Talad, so you'll no longer have to deal with weeks and weeks of unresponsiveness.
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The more I look at it I just feel like I don't have the available time to dedicate to more projects simultaneously. Most of what I learn contributing to PT applies to PS since they use the same underlying engine, which is why my PlaneShift documentation site should stay relevant. I'm always working on new stuff and tutorials for it so I'll continue to try to contribute in that capacity instead. As for Jekkar, his last attempt was fairly recent anyways(3-4 months, and his was not ignored, it was denied due to not enough of a portfolio or something similar. Maybe he'd apply again, I'm not certain :) you never know.
On my end I have more personal reasons than just the ignored applications. In retrospect, while I like PS, I have serious moral reservations with the licensing of the art, and from speaking with Talad, I get the feeling it is run like a job with deadlines, etc. He is fanatical about results, which is fine because it works for you all, but I'm not sure I want a 2nd unpaid job style job. I'd rather just have a nice quiet place to model and commit to. That and I was told outright that I wasn't good enough anyways so I'm probably carrying a bit of a chip on my shoulder from that even though its not a grudge that should be held against PS, nor in general. I'd be lying though if I said I wasn't a bit upset about that.
In any case that isn't that important anyways. I've a few little things I've made I'll be putting in the contribution thread. Its nothing in any of the lists but I figure if its wanted it will be used, otherwise it won't. Those models are all very PS specific so they belong here since its who I made it for. Maybe I'll brush that stuff up this weekend and post it all in one hunk.
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Thanks for the further explanation, Induane. So there's one reason some people may not be interested in contributing too much - our license. Which is ultimately something we can't do anything about, so we must agree to disagree (http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/1698/happycbh5.gif) (Not that it prevents us from expanding the team at all, again - in case someone gets that impression.)
You are right about the project being run with deadlines, and while this can seem stressful, it does work out. At least, we are constantly pushing out new stuff, without pause. So yes, if someone has a more laid-back "I'd like to do this in my own time and turn it in sometime when its finished" mindset, it's not going to work too well for PlaneShift - at least definitely not with the art team. But, (addressing the general public now) if you can do a texture a week, a model in a couple of weeks, some buildings for a level in a couple of months, there's no problem.
Either way, I'm very impressed with the posted screenshots. And I'm definitely interested in hearing how long some of that work took, so I can get an idea of what's a comfortable pace for you guys?
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Sueastside did the Castle Model in a week, not counting texturing. The tavern, not counting textures interior and exterior was about 6 hours of total work. I guess my issue is that I'm not sure where to sqeeze out more time. I work 50 hours a week, have 2 kids, play in a band, and volunteer with Kiwanis.
My daily schedule:
6:00 am - Up and
Work all day
Go home, play with kids, often go to park.
9:30 - kids go to sleep. Go for my run then work on PT.
11:30 - work through a chapter in my C#/Mono book.
Whenever - go to bed.
Exceptions are Wednesday and Friday evenings where PT and C# are replaced with band practice.
Weekends I tend to spend at the PC but doing finishing work instead of modeling. This is laying out things, getting exports setup correctly, etc... I try to have some downtime on the weekends to recharge the old noodle. I chat, play PlaneShift, and write art tutorials.
One thing I am very interested in is fixing up the bronze door region. Its a brilliant model but it has several things lacking in export that can be done to reduce crashing, improve load time, and up fps. Also, PT has a custom shader which could be used for the waterfall to make it awesome. Its developer said they'd be happy to share if someone asked for it (Talad Probably). Unfortunately when I asked Talad, he said no because the BronzeDoors region was "Done."
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No more going to Talad for art issues, guys - you'll have a much more successful time using me as an in-between, and I'm definitely interested in that shader! :) Do you have a demo of it up somewhere?
Unfortunately we won't be able to give someone an entire map level to tweak for various things, but if you have ideas on what to improve and how to do so, I'm all ears. We just can't give out assets outside of the dev team.
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Well, I offered to sign a legally binding NDA but to no avail. I had hoped that would be enough. I'll make a shader demo when I get a chance - the best example I have of it now is old.
Requires Theora Codec to view:
http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Video/waterfall.avi (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Video/waterfall.avi)
The water in the pool, and the waterfall itself is using that shader. Its not a good example of how realistic it can look though because the colors there are so exaggerated.
What to improve in BD Region:
Convert all thingmesh objects to genmesh objects. Thingmeshes use more resources and are slower in general. They are also being obsoleted in CS soonish. I can do this quickly in b2cs, really anyone could.
Implement waterfall shader. I am familiar with this shader which takes many special things to setup correctly. I can do this as well.
Convert terrain to terrain engine. The reason that this was not done was that cherppow had some issues with terrain export in CS and the basematerial wasn't easy to get done right. The basemap problem was solved by our devs who wrote a basemap generator to build a basemap from the textures splatted to the terrain. I have extensive experience with terrain export, basemap tweaking and optimization and the like.
Early versions seemed to be using the frustvis culler - I don't know if this is fixed or not, but it should REALLY be using Dynavis.
Culling in general. All the meshes seem to be set to cull. This is very bad, particularly on high poly objects. On high poly objects, calculating culling is very expensive so it is better to turn culling off completely for high poly meshes and add a null mesh or invisible super low poly mesh inside the main mesh which is set to do culling instead. This can lead to drastic FPS improvements. I've a lot of experience in setting this up adequately since I have a tendency to overmodel at times :)
Lighter2. Once converted to genmesh, I'd recommend lighting with lighter2 since it does lightmaps on genmesh objects. Highly subdivided meshes should still be set to vertex shading for better performance while using the lightmaps for the larger genmesh objects. I am quite good at this kind of setup so I can be of help here too.
Grass. There is really only one grass texture there for the most part. You really want 3-6 at least blended together in various ways to improve the look so its not so monotonous.
Ladders. These need adjusted so you can climb them more easily. (Have not checked if this was fixed yet).
Weird Black parts, crashing, etc: A combination of terrain engine, genmesh objects, and lighter2 should really fix most of these problems (ones that don't stem from the particle system).
Clouds. This applies to all maps really. Some upper level slow moving clouds would be nice. We have a nice little cloud shader for this as well.
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Awesome, thanks for taking the time to write all this out. I'll see what I can do to help you help us with this :) Having some moving clouds would be a cool thing - wonder if that's something Xillix and Jeraphon see as possible within the stalactite, though. Nice water! I'd love to have that in the BD region, and I imagine it would work great on small fountains as well.
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Both the water and waterfall are done with the same shader. There are still issues with it we're trying to work out, but when its totally done it will be in crystalspace anyways for use. It has some issues with working when totally vertical when viewed from an acute angle for instance.
Also, at the minimum the water in the BD region should be at least set to double sided so they don't vanish when you go under. This is a 2 second fix.
As for clouds, I have seen it discussed, and I'm pretty certain that they decided that there could be, considering it rains.
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Having some moving clouds would be a cool thing - wonder if that's something Xillix and Jeraphon see as possible within the stalactite, though.
Yes. It is known that Yliakum has rain. Thus, clouds are not impossible. (It would also make the skybox a lot less dreary.)
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Here is a quick ugly vid of the cloud shader in action. As before, requires Theora codec.
http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Video/clouds.avi (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Video/clouds.avi)
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Not every project is a fit for every potential developer. Whether it is license, goals, design, decision-making structure, whatever--it doesn't matter. Ultimately this is a good thing because it means we aren't all working on one thing. :-)
It's a Bazaar, not a Cathedral, remember? :-)
I do agree the screenshots are impressive. I'm a bit disappointed in the "closed" nature of not having a public server though. ;-)
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I have no idea what developers have been leaving, and I've been on the team for a year and a half. We have had 0 people consciously quit the team, 1 (DaveG) mysteriously disappear, and 1 Settings member (Kerol) switch to a GM Team Leader position because he felt he was better suited for it.
What about me? :innocent:
Why would someone stop contrbuting to a free project? Well, because they no longer have the free time, or the interest, or their personal life changed, or they got abducted by aliens, or all of the above.
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I do agree the screenshots are impressive. I'm a bit disappointed in the "closed" nature of not having a public server though. ;-)
muwahahah we have a server running all the time now :) - even made Draklar a client last night - well... sueastside did.
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Not every project is a fit for every potential developer. Whether it is license, goals, design, decision-making structure, whatever--it doesn't matter.
I don't think that's the issue that people have with Planeshift. From what I've seen, they aren't unhappy so much as they're unsure. They don't feel that they know what the license, goals, etcetera truly are despite what they've been told by people like yourself.